By using this site, you agree to our Privacy Policy and our Terms of Use. Close

Forums - Nintendo - Switch Docking Station for 90€. Why?

Companies always upcharge accessories.

There are two huge money makers for companies.
1. Insurance
2. Accessories

Both are basically considered 100% profit for a company whenever purchased. That goes for any company, not just console makers. Phones, TV's, heck even your kitchen aid mixers. Have you ever looked at the costs of the attachments for them.



Around the Network

I don't know nintendo kinda lost their minds with some of the accessories prices



                                                                                     

It's a complete ripoff and it's only making the switch cost more than it needs to. The story of the Wii U all over again. The Switch should have been cheap as fuck. But due to an overpriced black piece of plastic, and overengineered joycons...ugh.



There's no extra hardware or cooling in the dock, it uses the integrated cooling system and has air holes to allow it to cool the hardware running at full capacity, because it doesn't have to rely on a battery anymore it allows for better performance.

And no, we won't be getting anything similar to what that patent says, because USB - C doesn't have the transfer speeds for that. If it was a Thunderbolt port, it would be possible but even if they were to do this and it would have competitive hardware docked the difference between docked and undocked would become bigger and handheld mode would be harder to optimize for with such a huge power gap.

Let's say that the supplemental dock cranks the power up, and now we have a 2 TFLOP GPU, sure you could port any games for that without issues but now try optimizing the same game to run on 350 - 400 GFLOPS undocked (or as many people here believe 150 GFLOPS). Not an easy feat, you'd have to make a lot of sacrifices.

All in all the dock actually isn't priced that badly. For 90 dollars you also get the power brick and USB (doesn't say if it's 2 or 3) to HDMI. The USB to HDMI would be 15 dollars, and the power brick would be around 25 (since Nintendo has to make a profit off these). So that makes the dock 50 dollars, and it probably costs around 25-35 dollars to produce (note it has soft material for the Switch so it doesn't get damaged, that slightly jacks the price up), so really it isn't that big of a scam as it appears on first glance. Just like the Joy-Cons, which cost more money than you'd think to produce because of their size and built in tech (not to mention it's not Nintendo's tech, so they have to pay a fee to use it which brings the price up).



potato_hamster said:
KLXVER said:
It comes with a HDMI cable and a charger as well though. Not so bad. The JoyCons are where the crazy price is at.

An HDMI cable and charging cord combined costs Nintendo maximum $2. The dock itself costs them no more than $10 to make, box and ship. So yes, still horrific.

Fair enough.



Around the Network
Dulfite said:
JRPGfan said:

This is the problem.

299$ switch

30$ adapteur lan (for nintendo switch)

50$ MicroSD

70$ procontroller

+1 game 60$

= 509$    (to get a system that basically has what a PS4slim / XB1s bundle has)

What's that?  brand new system costs as much as bundles of systems that have been out for years?

And you are surprised? When the ps3 launched, the base price of the device was $500-600. And that was back years ago. Inflation would put that at $600-700 now days.

New devices = no fancy bundles in order to get as much boost profit as possible off people like me that are early buyers that don't need the big fat incentives. 

This argument is so dumb. Like it or not, the Switch is competing directly with the PS4 and Xbox One for sales. There will be millions of prospective buyers that will likely be choosing between a PS4 (or Xbox One) and a Switch. Do you think when they go to Best Buy and see the PS4 demo booth right next to the Switch demo booth, and notice the games on the PS4 look much, much better, they're really going to care that the PS4 is three years old? Do you think when they go to the games section and see Skyrim for the switch selling for $60, and 1-2 Switch selling for $50, and then look through the PS4 game section, and the Skyrim special edition  for PS4 is in the discount bin for $20, along with a dozen other games like Tomb Raider, or the Uncharted collection for $20 or less, they're going to be excited about those prospects? DDo you think when they are making their choice, do they think to themselves "Well the PS4 is a much better deal now, but it would be a worse deal if I bought it three years ago, so even though the Switch will cost me hundreds of dollars more right now, it's just as good of a deal!".

No of course they don't. They buy a PS4 with a pack in game and buy another 4 of the latest games with it (or a dozen games that came out a year ago) for the same price they can buy a Switch for, that's going to be a +1 sale for Sony and not for Nintendo.  It is Nintendo's fault that they decided to put out a new home console 3 years after the PS4 and X1 came out. It's Nintendo's fault they released a console against competition that to the average consumer is better value in every way.



Why ? The simple answer is : Nintendo is to video games what Apple is to smartphones (minus the sales )



Predictions for end of 2014 HW sales:

 PS4: 17m   XB1: 10m    WiiU: 10m   Vita: 10m

 

potato_hamster said:
Dulfite said:

What's that?  brand new system costs as much as bundles of systems that have been out for years?

And you are surprised? When the ps3 launched, the base price of the device was $500-600. And that was back years ago. Inflation would put that at $600-700 now days.

New devices = no fancy bundles in order to get as much boost profit as possible off people like me that are early buyers that don't need the big fat incentives. 

This argument is so dumb. Like it or not, the Switch is competing directly with the PS4 and Xbox One for sales. There will be millions of prospective buyers that will likely be choosing between a PS4 (or Xbox One) and a Switch. Do you think when they go to Best Buy and see the PS4 demo booth right next to the Switch demo booth, and notice the games on the PS4 look much, much better, they're really going to care that the PS4 is three years old? Do you think when they go to the games section and see Skyrim for the switch selling for $60, and 1-2 Switch selling for $50, and then look through the PS4 game section, and the Skyrim special edition  for PS4 is in the discount bin for $20, along with a dozen other games like Tomb Raider, or the Uncharted collection for $20 or less, they're going to be excited about those prospects? DDo you think when they are making their choice, do they think to themselves "Well the PS4 is a much better deal now, but it would be a worse deal if I bought it three years ago, so even though the Switch will cost me hundreds of dollars more right now, it's just as good of a deal!".

No of course they don't. They buy a PS4 with a pack in game and buy another 4 of the latest games with it (or a dozen games that came out a year ago) for the same price they can buy a Switch for, that's going to be a +1 sale for Sony and not for Nintendo.  It is Nintendo's fault that they decided to put out a new home console 3 years after the PS4 and X1 came out. It's Nintendo's fault they released a console against competition that to the average consumer is better value in every way.

Your missing switches main draw though. It's for all purposes a handheld. 

One can't bring their PS4 on the plane, train or automobile. They can't play it at lunch during work, or at school recess/lunch/study hall. They don't have to unhook their whole system and cords and lug it over to grandmas or a friends house for the day. And then have to hook it all back up again when they get home. 



Dulfite said:
vivster said:

At least in the past new consoles tried to justify their price by more powerful hardware than the cheaper 3 year old devices.

Um, this thing makes its predecessors, The Wii U and particuparly the 3ds, look like a joke. The screen quality is considerably better than any touchscreen Nintendo has made before, it can do, apparently, 1080p on the screen itself according to Nintendo a couple nights ago (contrary to what Digital Foundry said). It has a LOT more internal storage than the 3ds and has a LOT more room for future proofing with up to 2 TB micro sd cards room (MORE than probably triple what anyone would need on a Nintendo device). The interface is much improved, it only takes seconds to boot games up (the powerful ones at that), I would imagine the internet capabilities will be a lot better and I'd think with paid online that servers won't get shut down shortly after launch like Devil's Third. It has like smallest motion control devices I've ever seen (light, convenient) and from what I've heard they are about as 1:1 as you can get right now, unlike the wii motes or even wii motion plus which were massive by comparison and waggle toys more than anything.

Please look at their own website and stop spreading misinformation. Thank you!



It does not matter what is inside. Even if the production cost would be 1$, price is always made by demand. If a user owns more than one TV he will have a lot of money and can afford the price, at least this is what Nintendo seems to think. A successful company like Apple always takes the maximum possible amount of money, as long as they can find enough customers willing to pay.